Thailand

Brett LOVES Thai food!
This is his usual lunch at the beach!

Crazy monkeys in Hua Hin

Hua Hin Beach during the kiteboarding world championships

Riding the skytrain in Bangkok

Feeding the elephants at Maesa Elephant Camp

Our group for cooking class! (can you spot Brett? Hint: he is the one with the beard)

H'Mong village outside Chiang Mai

Don Suthep Wat outside Chiang Mai

HI All,

I know I should be updating this blog better but honestly I don't want to rub anything in. Basically we are just laying at the beach ALL day and ripping around on our rented moped all night!! We have spent 2 full days at the beach. The kiteboarding festival is mad and going on everywhere in town! It is really fun to sit on the beach and watch all the guys riding by! The town is really cute and there are tons of little places set up on the beach renting nice chaise lounges and umbrellas for 100 baht (US $ 4.00) for the entire day. The places also have little restaurants set up so we have been eating like kings for $2! It is so much fun. We are planning to stay here a little longer and forgo the city exploring for a couple reasons. 1. It is just too great here and 2. we are not stoked about getting stuck in the mess in Bangkok with the protectors.

We are still loving our curries, stir fries, mango sticky rice and all that Thailand has to offer! It is so fun to be able to order anything you want and know that it will really cost next to nothing.

I will keep you posted as possible and I would love to post some pictures but the internet cafes are not always great with the technology so getting pictures onto the computers and onto the internet is not really possible at the moment.

We love you and all miss you guys!
Love,
B and K8

While I have a few more minutes left on the computer I thought I would try and let you all into our lives here in Thailand. Well, it is different and yet just like I imagined it would be! Weird, I know. It is busy, loud, hot, humid, sacred, relaxed, beautiful and yummy all at the same time. We are in Chiang Mai which is a very special place for visitors and even Thais! It is a quite large city with 1.6 million people but yet it feels quite small. We are able to get any kind of food we want at any hour so let me tell you Brett is HAPPY! The original town is walled, much like the little town I lived in in Italy! The wall was built to keep out Burmese invaders and apparently it worked!

We rented a moped for 2 days and it has been such a blessing. We are able to see so much. Today we headed up to a massive wat (temple) Doi Suthep which is located up in the hills outside of Chiang Mai. The wat was built in 1355 and it was quite amazing being there! We were immersed in Buddhism immediately with monks, locals, and other tourists. It was pretty neat. After the wat we headed into the hills more and visited a little hillside village that seemed pretty remote. Thanks to the moped we were able to get a super cheap meal made by a cute little family run street restaurant. We also purchased some coffee and red tea from a local seller and have been sniffing the coffee bag ever since!

Thailand is pretty crazy. Brett and I are living like royalty for really very little. We are eating the most amazing curries and stir-fries for literally nothing. We each had an awesome curry yesterday with rice and it costs $1.20 plus it tastes amazing. We have also signed up for a cooking class. We are getting picked up tomorrow around 830am and being whisked away to a cooking school outside the city. The itinerary includes going to a local market to pick out produce, cooking a selection of dishes at our own cooking stations and than eating all our amazing dishes! I am really looking forward to cooking next to Brett and trying what we have created!! We are getting to do this special day for next to nothing as well!

We head off to Bangkok and then Hua Hin on Monday. We are planning to stay in Hua Hin for 5 days to watch the kiteboarding pro tour as well as sit on the beach!

Hope all is well at home and know that we miss you and love you all!!!

Love,
B and K8

Photos from our latest adventures

Our ride from the airport to our hotel in Chiang Mai, Thailand













Hanging out after lunch on our boat tour to Phi Phi Island!














Feeding the monkeys at Monkey Beach!

Maya Beach! The movie The Beach was partially shot here!

Riding the mopeds all over Phuket! Thai law is that the driver wears the helmet and not the passenger. We later found this out at a police stop. Go figure! No one was hurt in the process!













Kata Beach- right near our hotel in Phuket














View from Petronas Towers in KL- tallest buildings in the world until 2005



















Petronas Towers in KL


Batu Caves in KL! This gold statue is 140 feet tall!

KL

All is can say is WOW...

It is so different in Asia. I was expecting something different and overwhelming but I had no idea it was going to be like this. KL is busy, dirty, bright, loud, interesting, beautiful, diverse and going non-stop all the time. It is an amazing country because the people are so diverse and friendly. The Malay culture does not seem to be super prevalent in KL but I am sure in the highlands and outskirts the local people are more recognized. KL is comprised of a melting pot of Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Muslim and many others from the surrounding countries. You can get any kind of food you want at any hour. Everything from McDonald's to the local street food.

We flew in on Thursday from NZ and it was a shock walking off the plan to 33 degree weather and heaps of humidity. However, it was a nice change from being pretty much frozen to the bone in NZ. We finally felt like we were thawed out. We flew Air Asia from Auckland to KL which was a treat. It was quite a quiet flight so Brett and I each got a whole row. It was so nice and necessary since we only slept for a few hours the night before in the airport.

Brett and I have been here for two nights and we are staying for one more. The hostel we stayed at the last two nights is in the heart of downtown with shops, malls, cars, bright lights and plenty to eat and do. After getting to the hostel around 8pm on Thursday we left our bags in our room and headed down to the night market where there were hundreds of vendor selling food. We got a great Chinese meal of chicken fried rice and sweet and sour pork. It was really delicious. We slept so well that night!

Yesterday we headed to Batu Caves just outside the city. It is a series of 3 caves which are HUGE. Once you finally hike the 272 stairs to the top cave it is filled with shrines and temples for all different cultures to come and worship. Apparently it is a major pilgrimage site in Jan and Feb for the locals people. It was massive and beautiful. Inside the caves there were also tons of monkeys running around. We were not expecting that. On the bus ride there we met a Polish girl and a Canadian guy who we spent the day exploring with! It was nice having some company. After the caves we went to lunch at an Indian place and it was interesting but good! We all shared a taxi home and explored Chinatown on our way back to our hostel. Because it is the beginning of monsoon season we had to make it home by 6pm to make sure we didn't get soaked. Thankfully we made it home with about 1 minute to spare because immediately the skies unleashed their powers. It was so intense. A lot like the rain in Port Douglas. It comes really hard for about 30 or 40 minutes and than stops as suddenly as it starts. We showered, watched a movie, napped and than headed our for dinner. In KL there are massive malls all dedicated to the same thing. Let me explain: Last night we went to this mall because it was suppose to have a good food court with lots of choices for dinner. Well, we entered and realized it was an electronics mall. It has 6 stories of stores all dedicated to electronics. It was literally like the Tacoma mall full of the same electronics. It was insane. The part I cannot figure out is that they all sell the same stuff so really how would you know which store to pick?!?!

As you can see we are seeing a ton and learning so much. It will be really nice to get out of the city and onto some of the Thailand beaches! However, KL has been a great starting point and we are really happy we picked it! I will try and post some pictures but it is pretty hard with only having access to computer at an internet cafe. They are usually pretty strict about what you can do on their computers. Also, just wanted to let you know Brett finished his class so he is finally free!!!!

Miss you all and love you!
Love,
B and K8

We have offically sent home all our clothes and are ready for 35 degree weather and 100% humidity in Asia. We are in the Auckland airport waiting to board our plane back to OZ than onto the long flight to KL!

Miss you and love you!

Hi Guys,

I feel like I have been really bad about posting so I am not sure how you guys feel. We have been running all around NZ and enjoying it very much! It is so much different than Australia which in some ways is very good and others not so much. The country is really cold, which has been difficult but it is beautiful and very unique.

We spent all day today at the beaches just outside of Auckland with our friend Dean, who is a local Auckland boy. We went to the Piha beach, climbed a small moutain for a view, visited his uncle's beauitful beach house, hiked to some waterfalls, grabbed some fresh mussels for dinner, met his grandmother and cooked an amazing dinner with another of Dean's friend. It has been great to have a tour guide. Pretty much all is really well!

We are dropping off our rental car tomorrow afternoon and than spending one more evening with Dean. He works at the customs deptartment of the Auckland airport so he will pick us up from the rental car place, take us to dinner and drop us back off so we can stay the night at the airport. Our flight leaves Auckland on Thursday the 4th at 630am headed for Melbourne and than off the KL in Malaysia!

We have been taking a lot of pictures so when we get to some sort of internet cafe we will plug in the stick and upload some! Hopefully everything, especially internet, will be as cheap as they say it should be in Asia!

We hope everything is going well at home. We are excited to see everyone next month! We will try to keep everyone as updated as possible. Dick, I hope you really enjoy the Iditarod this year. We are so jealous and a little bummed we cannot go this year. Bo, we hope you enjoy Palm Spring visiting your Dad! It will be nice to get into some wonderful weather. Mom and Dad Heacox, we cannot wait to see you guys at the airport on the 7th along with anyone else you bring!!!! Erica, happy birthday on the 4th and enjoy New York for Coffee Fest! Safe Travels. Love you all

Love,
B and K8